Remote Desktop Connection vs. GoToMyPc

I'd like to use my home MBP to access the files on my work PC. I'm having trouble discerning the differences between Remote Desktop Client and GoToMyPc. Can anyone offer any wisdom on the matter and which program may be best for my needs?

For the most part, I would just like to have access to the Word and Excel files on my work PC and edit them on my home MBP.

I also wouldn't mind being able to work on the PC's quicken program from my home computer. Is that possible with either program?

They both should let you do those things... I would personally go with Remote Desktop. I have never been impressed with Citrix -- in my past experience, it's been slow and it would start dropping graphical features when it couldn't keep up. Also RDC is free and the server is already built into Windows 2k, XP, 2003, Vista, etc. The MS RDC client, particularly the new beta (which seems as stable to me as the old release), is very nice.

1. Will RDC allow me to actually see the PC's screen and use the programs on it?

2. There's a chance my PC at work is running XP (not Pro) and I was noticing that XP Pro is required for use with RDC. Is there a workaround for using XP?

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1. Yes. You get a full screen (or a window if you want it) that's identical to your desktop. Your mouse becomes the Windows mouse while you're inside it, and everything looks like it would if you logged in locally.

Generally, it's pretty good about adapting to your native resolution (our Win2003 server shows up in native 1440x900 on my iMac), but if it can't, you'll get a full screen res that the Windows computer can understand with some letterboxing.

You can trim down graphical features slightly for speed, if you want to. When you're in full screen mode (with the beta), you can also still use Exposé (the full screen correctly renders as one of the active windows), and you can also use the dock, the OS X menubar, and OS X applications over the top of the full screen if you want. You can even dynamically change the fullscreen mode into a scaled (!) windowed mode (so you see a rendering of the full Windows screen in the window) in the beta. You can also cut and paste between Windows and OS X, and you can move files and share printers.

2. Unless you work in a very small company, it's pretty unlikely they bought Windows XP Home for business installations. But no, I don't know of a workaround, sorry. Might try googling about it, but I'd be fairly shocked if you're using XP Home at work.

Here's an example. If I click back into a window in Windows, the dock and menubar auto hide.

That's exactly what I'm looking for. Thank you. I wish I knew about this earlier! I'm going to check my work computer tomorrow. Sadly, it is a small company (only three employees), so it is likely that they bought XP.

We don't have a real firewall, but we are all connected to a router. Will that pose an issue with RDC?

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The way I understand RDC, you have to have a way to reference the computer... meaning that it needs to either...

1) Have a public IP address or domain name

2) Or the PC in question needs to be able to listen to port 3389 on the upstream public IP address of the router (this is a router configuration thing).

If you want to have more than one computer under the router accessible, you can have them each listen to some arbitrary high-number port, like computer A = 22359, B = 22360, C = 22361, etc. Then, if 1.2.3.4 is the public IP address of the router, to RDC to A, you would enter in 1.2.3.4:22359 as the IP address in RDC.

If neither one is feasible, then I think you have to use something like Citrix.

So, I should be able to just do a no-ip dynamic ip report, and then do a port forward of the VNC ports to a "static" DHCP on their ONE mac computer?

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I'm not sure what the security ramifications are for having VNC ports being forwarded, but it should work.

Personally, I have my router forward a non-standard port to port 22 (SSH) on my Mac. If I want to remote control it, I do a SSH tunnel that port forwards 5900. I figure it's probably a lot harder for someone to get thru SSH than VNC.

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